Inside Kevin Smith's most personal venture yet: Owning his childhood movie theater

• Kevin Smith's SModcastle Cinemas is a shrine to the filmmaker's career.
• Located in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, Smith often hosts events and introduces movies.
• BI spoke to Smith at SModcastle about his most personal venture yet.

Entering SModcastle Cinemas, the New Jersey movie theater owned by filmmaker Kevin Smith, is like approaching the altar of a giant shrine to raunchy slacker-cinema.

Gracing one wall is a mural of memorable characters from Smith's movies, like Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen in "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" and Mark Hamill as Cocknocker in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." Posters from his films and live podcast events line the hallways leading to the five screens mazed through the building. On at least one of them, a Kevin Smith movie is usually playing.

It's the perfect destination for Gen X movie fans, who grew up obsessed with Smith's signature low-budget artistry and unabashed embrace of R-rated antics.

Yet, to my surprise, the first patron I see in the SModcastle lobby one Friday afternoon is a young boy of no more than six years old with his mother.

When Smith walks through the door shortly after wearing his usual outfit — backwards cap, suit jacket, and shorts — he fills me in on a secret. Yes, SModcastle is a physical space devoted to the View Askewniverse, a reference to his production company's name, View Askew. But there are other ways he keeps the lights on.

"Birthday parties are one of our biggest moneymakers," he says.

Over his 30-year career, Smith has been called many things, but shrewd businessman is not one of them. Yet his artistic appeal has helped Smith turn himself into a viable brand.

Though modest by design, SModcastle Cinemas is the latest testament to the power of the grassroots-level hustle that propelled Smith to stardom with "Clerks" in the 1990s.

From filmmaker to podcaster

Smith released his 1994 debut feature, the black-and-white comedy "Clerks," at the height of the US indie film craze, when movies like "Pulp Fiction" and "Hoop Dreams" were showing audiences that there was more to see in theaters outside of what major studios had to offer.

Shot at the actual convenience store where Smith worked, Quick Stop in Leonardo, New Jersey, "Clerks" introduced the world to wiseass New Jersey twenty-something characters like Dante Kicks, Randal Graves, Rick Derris, and, of course, Jay and Silent Bob.

Thanks to its countless pop-culture references and crude humor, "Clerks" found instant acclaim, making Smith, who also played Silent Bob, the "It" young filmmaker in the burgeoning indie film scene.

Smith went on to make movies like "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," "Dogma," and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." Though none were as universally praised as "Clerks" — especially the doomed "Jersey Girl" — they built Smith a loyal and enduring fanbase.

The movies laid the foundation for the most lucrative aspect of the Kevin Smith brand: himself. From a strain of marijuana to SModcast, a podcast he started with his former producer Scott Mosier in 2007 (the "P" in podcast is replaced with the first letters of their last names), Smith has been honing his public persona for decades. In 2010, this led to Smith finding a venue where he could perform in front of a live audience whenever he wanted: He called it SModcastle.

The first version was in Los Angeles at a 48-seat location on Santa Monica Blvd.

"Scott and I had just gone out to do a SModcast tour, and I wanted to be able to do it live whenever I wanted," Smith tells me while laying on his chest on the stage of the 230-seat main theater at SModcastle's current location.

Though SModcastle 1.0 on Santa Monica always sold out when Smith was in attendance, that was the problem: whenever he wasn't there, the place was empty.

Though the business model was far from perfect, Smith says it was the incubator for what would become the SModcast network of podcasts, which is now the backbone of his brand. Shows like "Hollywood Babble-On" and "Jay & Silent Bob Get Old" were birthed at SModcastle 1.0 and have since built loyal audiences and sold out live shows.

Smith finally closed down the Santa Monica SModcastle in 2011. Then in 2021, he learned of an opportunity to rent space in the same building as the Quick Stop where he shot "Clerks."

"Great, we're doing it again, and it's right next to Quick Stop, where we know people come there as a tourist trap. This will be fantastic," Smith recalls thinking.

But the same problem that befell the LA location crept up in New Jersey: if Smith wasn't in attendance, the place was empty.

In 2022, Smith and his business associates (including Ernie O'Donnell, who played Rick Derris in "Clerks") learned that the movie theater Smith used to go to as a child, Atlantic Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, was going up for sale.

As a kid in the 1980s, Atlantic Cinemas had been Smith's home away from home, where he saw the then-new releases like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Blade Runner" that would go on to shape his life and work.

"I instantly thought, this makes more sense," Smith says. "I can monetize every piece of this, I can show whatever I want, and, if I own the place, I can make a movie there."

SModcastle Cinemas is a home for all things Kevin Smith

Set in the middle of 1st Avenue in Atlantic Highlands, the location has a deep history in the town. Smith tells me that in the early 1900s, the building was the stable for the horse the mailman used to deliver mail. In 1921, it became a 670-seat single-screen picture house. By the 1980s, when Smith was a fixture there, it had two screens. In 1992, it expanded to three screens, and in 1999, it became a five-screen multiplex.

For Smith, SModcastle Cinemas is his grandest creation yet. Not only is it a place where he can show his movies anytime he wants, but it's also a first-run theater where local moviegoers can see everything from "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" to "The Wild Robot" (the birthday party was there for the latter).

Smith is the first to admit that he isn't raking in the cash showing these non-Smith movies, but it helps when he's not in town. And he's hoping that when you show up, you're buying something from the concession stand, which, like any movie theater, is its lifeblood.

"I knew we weren't going to get rich, but it's simple math. If people are here watching a movie, a movie we will only get max 50% of the box office receipts for. Our only hope is they are going to buy some fucking snacks," he says. "I don't care if you're here the whole day watching movies and only bought one ticket; as long as you're buying snacks, we're good. We're like the Catholic Church: we can't be picky anymore, we let everyone through the doors."

It's when Smith is at SModcastle that business really takes off.

Tickets to screenings with Smith in attendance or events that take up all 700 seats on the five screens are upcharged, with prices ranging from $25-$60 depending on the event (a general adult ticket to a regular movie is $11).

Smith also begins every event he attends by auctioning off memorabilia from his films, like an autographed "Mallrats" script or a prop from the set of "Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back" to help raise money to keep the theater in business. (Some items have sold for as much as $5,000).

The building's historical significance also enabled SModcastle to became a non-profit, a move that Smith hopes will qualify the theater for grants and other financial support that will allow him to offer filmmaking classes for kids and adults.

The evening I meet Smith, he's introducing a screening of his latest movie, "The 4:30 Movie," which uses SModcastle as the film's setting. The story follows a teenage boy named Brian (Austin Zajur) as he plans to sneak into his local theater with his friends for a day of movie watching, topped with seeing an R-rated movie with the girl of his dreams.

It's Smith's most personal movie in years, as he takes a pause from the View Askewniverse to tell a story that's a love letter not just to cinema but his own childhood at the movies.

"Hanging up behind the counter here, there's a note that Kim, my high school girlfriend, had written to me, and it says, 'Dear Kevin, will you take me to see 'Dirty Dancing' at the Atlantic Highlands Twins Cinema?'" Smith says. "And it's from 1987, when 'Dirty Dancing' came out. Whenever I come to this place, that's what I'm reminded of."

Because "The 4:30 movie" was predominantly shot in a theater he owns, Smith didn't have to pay costly location fees. But while the road to profitability might not ultimately be quicker (the film's financier, Saban Films, still has to make its money back) the connection between the movie and the physical theater is one Smith hopes will have a lasting impact on the profitability of both.

"This place fucking starred in a movie," he says. "So the demand to see it will diminish over time, but we own five screens; ain't no reason why every Sunday at 4:30, this can't be playing on one of the screens even if three people show up." 

With a passion project like SModcastle, Smith is banking on the power of nostalgia not just for his old movies, but for the ritual of moviegoing itself. Along with showing his own movies, Smith is booking hard-to-find titles to screen in hopes that the theater becomes a destination for cinephiles. He also offers his screens to filmmakers who want to buy out a showtime, known in the industry as "four-walling," to show the movies they made.

By the time I leave SModcastle, the birthday party has ended, and there's already a line stretching down the block for that evening's screening.

Smith and I part ways in the lobby, and he goes over to say hello and take selfies with some fans.

It reminds me of something he told me earlier: Yes, it's hard to Kevin Smith all the time, but it's never not fun.

"When this place is packed, you feel accomplished as fuck," he says, looking around a theater that was so important to him early in life.

"But it's always a struggle, and it should be. Because if it wasn't, what you're saying is I deserve money to make pretend for a living."